Last week I randomly stopped by Sandor Katz’s website (author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved) and was shocked to find he had an upcoming event scheduled in DC. So I immediately ordered a ticket and last night after work, I headed to Chinatown…

… to the synagogue …

… and spent two and a half hours listening to him speak. Unfortunately, I didn’t lug my big camera with me and my phone is inexcusably terrible at taking pictures. But I tried to get some pictures because I knew I was going to want to tell you how great the talk was.

Sandor and a cabbage.

Sandor is a fountain of fermentation knowledge. He just rattles off the Latin names of various bacteria as if he’s reciting the alphabet and he’s very inspiring. I think even more than all the facts and scientific stuff he went over, my big take-away from the session was really just his attitude. I’m a very laid-back, relaxed cook and I don’t do a lot of measuring, but I have always calculated an amount of salt to use in my sauerkraut and other pickles based on the weight of the vegetables. Sandor, however, says you don’t have to bother with all that measuring nonsense. You just chop up some vegetables – however you want, or you know, don’t bother chopping them – and add as much salt as you feel like and put it in a jar, or some other vessel. Then when it tastes good, you eat it. And that’s that. To prove how simple a process this was, he made some sauerkraut while talking to us, without even thinking about it.

We also got some samples, including of a prior batch of his sauerkraut, so yes, I’ve tasted Sandor Katz’s sauerkraut and it was tasty! We also got kimchi, pickle juice, and beer.

If Sandor should make an appearance near you (and who knows, with a new book due out in a couple of weeks, maybe he will), I definitely recommend checking it out. Buy a ticket in advance too, because this event sold out and there was a line down the block to get in. Which I thought was pretty awesome. I didn’t realize until last night just how big a deal Sandor was. It was kind of interesting to be in a room with so many other people that share my interest in this stuff, even if I am terribly shy and of course didn’t talk to any of them. I often feel very isolated, but it turns out that whenever I venture out into the world in pursuit of one of my interests, whether it be wildlife or fermentation or whatever, there are plenty of other people around, even here in Northern Virginia, that are into it as well. Who knew? Anyway, the class was great and I can’t wait to get a bunch of jars of various things bubbling away…I’ve been lazy lately and this talk was exactly what I needed.

Once the class was over, I walked down 6th St NW towards the metro station …

… which is on the left corner of this picture.

Hopped on the Red Line at Gallery Place …

… and transferred to the Orange at Metro Center. I have a lot of bad things to say about DC, and even a lot of bad things to say about the Metro, but I DO have to say that the stations are nice and it’s very clean. That’s because they’ll arrest you for so much as finishing a candy bar on the escalator (no food allowed) or drinking anything, even if you’re handicapped! And if you are handicapped, you’ll need something to drink because you’ll be stuck underground forever because the elevators NEVER seem to be in service. I think they are a little overzealous in some of their policies, but it is probably the cleanest metro I’ve ever been on. It also has a particular smell that I forgot about until last night, and surprisingly, it’s not the smell of urine like the New York subway – I don’t even want to KNOW what they’d do to someone they caught urinating there – it’s not a bad smell at all. It’s just how the DC metro stations smell – I think it’s all that concrete or something – and you forget about it when you no longer have to ride it every day and then do so again after a long time. I had to wait a while for my train, which is why I have so many pondiferous thoughts about the metro’s odiferousness.

In addition to wondering why I’m talking about how the DC metro smells, you’re probably wondering why I’m being so fartsy-artsy with the black & white photos. Well, I mentioned a whole ago that I’d been taking some pictures with an infrared filter. I had a lot of fun with that, but it’s kind of a pain because of the very long exposures. The long exposures were part of the fun, but they aren’t very conducive to spontaneity, and I was thinking I wanted to get some fun IR pictures while we are in France and the Netherlands in May, and I might not always want to be carrying a tripod with me. Soooo, I found a camera that had been internally converted to take only IR pictures. With this modification, you can use the camera normally, so exposure times are normal, and you can see through the lens on the viewfinder, even auto-focus and all that good stuff. But every picture you take will be infrared-only, so this probably isn’t something you want to do to your only camera. But I found a used camera that already had the mod, AND the camera was one I was interested in anyway, a Panasonic Lumix GF2, which is a micro 4/3s camera, which means it’s really tiny but takes SLR-quality photos and leaves me with complete creative control, which is a must for me because I only use the manual settings.

All the pictures above except the colors ones of Sandor (which were taken with my phone) were taken with the new camera. None of them look very strange because they were taken in the city and things like buildings don’t reflect a ton of infrared light, especially at night. So those end up looking very normal once they’re converted to B&W. Things look a little different out in nature (or my yard) during the day. No, it didn’t snow (the weather’s been awesome and this is a particularly beautiful spring, I’ve found) – grass just reflects a lot of IR light.

We have a bunch of bamboo in our backyard. I keep maintaining it’s going to attract pandas, but so far we haven’t had a panda infestation that I know of.

I’m hoping to take some shots someplace other than my yard this weekend! None of these pictures were altered in any way other than being converted to B&W using Picasa, by the way. In fact, if anyone out there has any recommendations for a good RAW editor for Linux (I use Ubuntu) PLEASE let me know! I tried to get Lightroom and Photoshop working with wine, but it was a no-go. I don’t want to spend much time at all post-processing – I’m on a computer all day at work and I tend to keep away from it at home – but I am interested to see if I get better images working with the RAW files.

I try not to veer too much off topic on this blog (though somehow I’ve decided cats and raccoons are totally on topic), but at the risk of boring some of you, I might post a few. There’ll be more food next time, though, I promise! Quite likely fermented food!

Oh – one final thought. Any vegan tips for Nice, France? Mark has swapped out Marseille from our itinerary for Nice, which I’m cool with because Nice looks très belle, but I’m not as sure about eating there. Speaking of France, though, je lis les romans français! I read the English version of Julien Parme in about a day, and it kind of irked me in being SO like The Catcher in the Rye. It’s practically the same book 60 years later and in Paris. Putain. BUT the French version is perfect for my skill level and much more enjoyable. I bought a few other short, easy-seeming modern French books as well, but if anyone wants to suggest some more, I’m all ears. My reading skills are definitely way up, but my listening and speaking skills are pretty lousy. Story of my life – that’s true my English as well! But I’m hoping subtitles magically appear under everyone’s face when they speak in France. French subtitles are fine. My tutor said I’m out of luck with that. Putain.

I started this post – which isn’t even very long – three days ago and I’m only now finding the time to finish it. What’s more, I ate this dinner a week ago! I’ve always written up and published posts the same day as I’ve eaten the meal in the past. Unfortunately, that’s how busy I’ve been lately. The good news is that after a slump of a couple of months, I’m getting excited about cooking again so you should be seeing more from me. Of course, on the other hand, it’s about to be baby wildlife season which means the small amount of free time I have now is about to go away. But there’s good news there too because baby wildlife season means tons of pictures of baby raccoons – and maybe, JUST MAYBE (cross your fingers!), baby skunks – to share.

Enough blabber. On with the food. One of my favorite Indian dishes is saag, or spinach and mustard greens, but it’s often made with paneer, which is cheese, in restaurants, which means I can’t have it. What’s a girl to do but make it at home, right? Here’s what I did.

Saag

All the “1/2 tsp”s below? Yeah, I just wrote “1/2 tsp” as a guess. I didn’t really measure any of the spices.

10 oz spinach, chopped fairly well
1 small bunch mustard greens, chopped fairly well
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
1 heaping Tbsp grated garlic
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
3 dried chili peppers, lightly crumbled, or 1/4 tsp dried chili flakes
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp asofoetida
dollop vegan plain yogurt or vegan sour cream
salt to taste

Heat some oil in a large pot or skillet (a wok would work well) over medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and stir a bit. When they start to pop, turn the heat down and add the fenugreek and cumin seeds and cook, stirring, until the fenugreek is beginning to brown, then add the turmeric and asofoetida, then the onions, chilis, garlic, and ginger. Cook until the onions are translucent. Add the greens, in batches if you have to, letting some cook down a bit before adding another handful. Add a little bit of water if seems a little dry. Reduce heat, cover, and cook until the greens are soft. Salt to taste. Stir in a dollop of sour cream or yogurt (this is optional but adds a little bit of creamy tang that you’re not getting from the paneer that is so often added to this dish).

Here is the saag with some perfectly cooked basmati rice (thank you, rice cooker!).

Also served with chana masala and some naan. Yummy and makes for a good lunch the next day or two.

I came home well after dark most nights this week. Leaving work after the sun has set is always depressing to me, but it gets better when I come home and see this:

The fat one is Torticia and the prim one is Gomez. 🙂

Ugh, I have never gone this long without posting! I need to get back into the swing of it, or just start cooking more interesting things! I will try to be more consistent. Anyway, I nab fresh beans any time I see them, and I happened across some fresh black-eyed peas this weekend, so today I cooked up a spicy stew that seemed worth a post. Here’s what I did:

Black-eyed Pea Stew

1 leek, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 small or part of a large sweet potato, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 jalapeno, minced
about 6 large cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 tsp celery seed
10 oz fresh black-eyed peas
4 cups vegan broth or bouillon (I used “chicken” flavored bouillon)
2 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 Tbsp filé (optional, for thickening)
2 cups or more spinach (collard greens or chard would be even better but I was working with what I had on hand)

Chop the leek. I include some of the green bit so it doesn’t go to waste.

Mince the jalapeno.

Chop the tomato.

Mince or press the garlic and chop the carrot, bell pepper, and sweet potato.

Rinse and pick over the peas. You can also used dried black-eyed peas, which you don’t need to soak (though you can). Your cooking time will just be a bit longer.

Heat some oil in a Dutch oven, then add the leeks and celery seed. Cook for a few minutes.

Add the bell pepper, carrot, sweet potato, garlic, and jalapeno. Cook for another few minutes.

Add the broth or water and bouillon, tomatoes, black-eyed peas, liquid smoke, smoked paprika, and if you are using it, the filé. Bring to a boil and cook until the sweet potatoes and peas are soft.

Add the spinach and cook just for a minute or two (a little longer for collards or chard).

I didn’t have enough rice in the house, so I cooked some barley in some vegetable broth as an accompaniment.

Serve with a crusty bread!

I also served with avocado, because I serve everything with avocado. The avocados are shown atop the stew here, but I really smooshed them on pieces of bread to eat them. This was a nice, smoky, spicy, wholesome meal.

So, I spent part of my absence in LA, where I attended Fortinbras’ graduation. Yay for Fortinbras! The car rental place gave me a free upgrade to a Jeep Wrangler, which was a ton of fun and made me happy because I usually miss having a convertible when I’m there. Fort meant to take a picture of me in the Jeep because he said I very unexpectedly looked “perfect” driving it (he thought I’d be dwarfed by it as I’m so “tiny” and ordinarily drive a very tiny car), but we forgot. In fact, I lugged even more photography equipment than usual out there yet managed to take far fewer pictures than usual. It was more a trip to just be with friends, and Fort’s family, than sight-see, though, and it was really nice. One new thing we did do was drive down to San Diego, which is about two hours south of LA. This is La Jolla, which I learned on this trip is how you spell the place I formerly thought was spelled La Hoya!

This kind of looked like Greece to me, not that I’ve ever been to Greece.

We saw a gorgeous sunset there.

Okay. Time for a story. Lately it seems like all my trips end up taking on some sort of eerie literary significance. Have any of you read 1Q84? My story contains no spoilers, but it’s a little more interesting if you are familiar with it. I was driving a Jeep full of friends to La Jolla on an absolutely gorgeous day, sitting in typical southern California beach traffic, when from the passenger seat Fort exclaimed, “Some woman just got out of a cab into traffic and started walking down the highway!” To which I responded, “That’s the beginning of 1Q84!” Which it is; the book begins with a girl named Aomame, who is a passenger in a cab sitting in heavy traffic on a Japanese highway, getting out of the cab (with the encouragement of the cab driver) and walking across traffic to a nearby set of emergency stairs. Fort watched his woman walk away, and that was the end of that conversation.

We finally made it to the beach, just before sunset, and I took the pictures above. We stayed until the sun was completely set and the moon was high in the sky. I aimed my camera at the moon and snapped this picture:

That is NOT what I saw in the sky. What I saw in the sky was the bright white blob you see in the photograph. I did NOT see the second, green moon. If you have read 1Q84, you know why this picture is weird. In 1Q84, some people, including Aomame, become aware of a second, duller, greenish moon hanging in the sky a little lower than the regular moon. Most people don’t see the second moon. I have no explanation for the appearance of the green moon in the photograph. A second picture I took a short while later also contained the green moon. A picture from the exact same perspective taken by a friend did not contain the green moon. It must be some sort of lens flare – it looks like it may be a mirror image of the real moon – but it was strange it appeared just a couple of hours after another 1Q84-like event. Creepy, huh?!

I’m often mistaken for a creative person – I apparently have the appearance but none of the talent of an artist – but I’m really not creative. So when I do have a creative idea, you guys are gonna hear about it. I’ve been sewing up a storm on the trusty 15-91 this weekend. One of the things I made was napkins. That’s not the creative thing. I’d probably have made napkins sooner or later because I love cloth napkins, but the truth is I had plenty of them to begin with. But I saw Clotilde’s recent post on Chocolate and Zucchini about making napkins from fat quarters and had to make them much sooner than later because I have an ever-growing fat quarter obsession collection.

You see, both my mother, who can actually sew (unlike me), and I agree that the best part about sewing is picking out fabric. Until I bought my 15-91, it was the only part of sewing I liked. There is a lot of really neat fabric out there. The problem is I don’t have anything to do with most of it. I’m not going to wear it; I’ve been wearing black every day since the ’80s and I’m not about to stop now. So I buy fat quarters with hazy plans of making a quilt – the world’s largest quilt at this rate – when I’m 60. (A fat quarter, for those of you who are wondering, is a quarter yard of fabric, but one that’s been cut as a corner of the yard instead of a strip. So say a particular fabric is 44″ wide. If you went to the fabric store and requested a quarter yard of it, they’d cut you a piece that was 9″ x 44″. But a fat quarter, which is a “quilter’s cut”, would be 18″ x 22″. It’s always 18″ wide, but the height will vary. Fabric stores will often have fat quarters for $1, and there are tons of them on etsy, usually for $2 or $2.50.)

Soooo, inspired by Clotilde’s post, I raided my fat quarter stash and made some napkins. Where I got creative was in how to store them. They’re so pretty I want to look at them, so I got the idea to hang them up on a faux clothesline. It’s just some kitchen twine strung between two nails. Might not work for everyone, but our house is very casual. I didn’t need to figure out where the hell to put something else in my over-stuffed kitchen AND I can gaze admiringly at my pretty fabric when I’m not gazing admiringly at my sewing machine!

What do you think? I’m thinking it will be fun to tell guests to choose their own napkin and unpin it.

I could pretty easily be talked into doing a napkin tutorial, by the way, although it would be almost identical to the one Clotilde linked to. They’re just about the easiest possible thing to sew; it’d be a great project for kids, or a really great housewarming gift.

I also made oilcloth placemats although this picture makes them look terribly wrinkly. The oilcloth came all folded up and you can’t iron it so I’m just waiting for it to de-crease. I think maybe the chalkboard-everything craze is a bit 2009 (not that I follow trends very much), but I made these because if left to his own devices after finishing his meal during a dinner party, Mark becomes either very destructive or very creative. I hope to encourage creativity. Unlike me, Mark is extremely creative and very artistic. We do also very occasionally serve children and I suspect they may like them nearly as much as Mark.

One of the cats walked on this placement just after I wiped it clean and Mark chose to immortalize the paw prints. I very quickly found myself questioning the intelligence of this whole placement idea.

This is what the back of the placemats look like. Mark says they are hideous!

Finally, I made an improved lunch bag. Some time ago I made a very basic cloth lunch bag, which has been okay, but I’ve been a bit harder on it than I anticipated. I’ve been putting holes in it by dropping forks and knives into it, I’ve been spilling things in it, and I’ve been putting a heavier load than I thought in it, partially because I switched to a smaller laptop bag and have been putting a book to read during lunch in my lunch bag, and sometimes I read huge books. So I took the same concept but used canvas, which is sturdy, for the exterior and laminated cotton, which wipes clean, for the interior. I made it slightly larger, and I made a small, matching silverware holder to go inside. I managed to find the same exact fabric as the canvas in regular cotton, so I used that to make a matching napkin.

Here it is all packed up:

Wow, it actually feels a bit foreign to be writing this post. That means it’s been too long! I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks because I don’t like to make posts just to make them and I haven’t made anything worth talking about. But maybe I should start ensuring I make something post-worthy at least once a week. Here is what I made for dinner last night. It wasn’t perfect, but I suppose it’s worth a post.

Stuffed Butternut Squash

1 butternut squash
1 small onion or 1/2 medium to large onion, minced
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 link vegan sausage
1 cup mixed long grain/wild rice, uncooked

Slice the squash in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, place the halves face down on a pan, and place in a 400-degree oven. Cook until soft, about 30-40 minutes. I did this in my toaster oven which just perfectly fits two butternut squash halves.

Meanwhile, cook the rice according to package instructions.

Saute the onion, celery, and “sausage” in some olive oil until lightly browned.

Here are my cooked squash halves. The one is scored where I was testing it for done-ness.

Scoop out the insides, leaving a bit remaining.

Chop up the insides.

Combine the rice and the squash insides with the sausage mixture.

Stuff the mixture into each of the squash halves, packing it down.

If desired, sprinkle with some vegan cheese.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes.

This was tasty, but it really needed a binder. It felt like it was sticking together fairly well before I cooked it, but baking it dried it out and the filling got crumbly. So next time I’ll use an egg replacer or bread crumbs, or maybe mix in that cheese instead of sprinkling on top. And also maybe cover the squash up with foil.

And now, who’s a handsome cat???

The big news in these parts is Mark gave me my Valentine’s Day present early and IT’S A 2-WEEK TRIP TO FRANCE AND AMSTERDAM!!! We’re going in May. I’m so excited! We went to Amsterdam for a few days on our honeymoon …

… but we’ve never been to France. Suggestions of things to see, do, and/or eat in either place are very welcome! Also accepting suggestions of novels that take place in France and/or Amsterdam that I can read in the meantime.

I’ve heard Paris isn’t very vegan-friendly, so I’m sure Marseille will be even less so (we’re going to both cities). Fortunately we love bread and many breads, including the ubiquitous baguette, are vegan. Also, the French tutor I hired to help me remember my five years of high school and college French just happens to be a vegetarian and she totally knew what a vegan was, so hopefully I’ll be all set in the food-rejecting department. PAS DE BOEUF! PAS D’OEUF!

I’m also heading to LA in early March and the mountains with Mark’s family this summer…a lot of travel this year! Just the way I like it!

I had a Vitamix on my wish list for a few years. Every year when I didn’t get it for my birthday or Christmas, I’d spend the rest of the year telling myself that if I’ve lived this long without one, obviously I don’t NEED one. Then I finally got one this year (thanks, Smark!) and it turns out I DID need it. I use it several times a day. I’ve only had it a month and I don’t know what I’d do without it.

One thing I’ve been doing is making myself a smoothie as soon as I get home from work every day, which is great because it keeps me from binge snacking while I prepare dinner, which I’m prone to do because I come home hungry. And the neurologist I’m seeing for my headaches gave me what I consider the most awesome medical advice in the world: “don’t get hungry”. Hunger is a huge headache trigger, especially for me, so basically she just wants me to avoid the situation. So now I go around shouting, “MUST EAT, DOCTOR’S ORDERS!” whenever I’m even remotely hungry. I’m trying not to gain a million pounds while following those orders, though, so a late afternoon green smoothie is super-awesome for me.

Spinach-Pear Smoothie

3 large handfuls baby spinach
about 1 Tbsp flax seeds
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I use homemade hemp milk, recipe below)
1 or 2 dates, pitted OR a sweetener like maple or coconut syrup, to taste
1 pear, stem removed
a few pieces of frozen banana
a couple of ice cubes
contents of a probiotic capsule (optional)

Put it all in a Vitamix and blend on high just until completely smooth.

My other current favorite smoothie I call the “Omega Elvis” because it’s full of omega 3s. What I adore about the Vitamix is I don’t even need to have peanut butter on hand. I just use whole peanuts!

Omega Elvis Smoothie

a handful or two of unsalted roasted peanuts
about 1 Tbsp flax seeds
sweetener to taste; for this one I usually use coconut or maple syrup
about 1 cup hemp milk
1 frozen banana
pinch of salt

Again, put it all in the Vitamix and mix on high until thoroughly blended.

If I didn’t have a constant supply of hemp milk on hand, I’d just put some hemp seeds and water in the blender when making the smoothies. We’ve been through many phases of non-dairy milk. I’ve gone through periods of making my own soy milk and almond milk, but I’ve fallen out of those because they are too much effort and require forethought. So I’ve been buying milk, first almond and lately coconut milk for Mark, and hemp milk for myself. I’ll probably never be able to stop buying Mark milk because he doesn’t actually LIKE milk and homemade milk grosses him out for some reason. And he likes it sweeter than I do, and also vanilla-flavored. But I hate all the packaging we are wasting, and hemp milk is pretty expensive. I actually tried to make hemp milk once before I had a Vitamix and it wasn’t very good. It had to be strained and even afterwards, I just didn’t like it. The Vitamix is amazing because there is no need to strain hemp milk! It’s completely smooth without straining. Check it out:

Hemp Milk

1/2 cup shelled hemp seeds
2 1/2 cups water
1 date, pitted
generous pinch of salt

What hemp seeds look like:

Put it all in the Vitamix.

Blend on high until smooth; 30 seconds is probably enough. It will get frothy.

Refrigerate the milk. High-speed blenders add a lot of air to mixtures, so in order to fit the milk into the jar I use, I actually blend in 2 cups of water. Later after it’s settled back down, I’ll add the additional 1/2 cup of water in and shake it up. I guess I’m obsessed with jars, but something about this jar, with fresh homemade hemp milk in it, makes me very happy. It’s one of my many vintage mason jars, which by the way, Vegenaise lids fit perfectly, so if you have a hard time finding screw-on, non-canning lids, save ’em up. (In fact, Vegenaise jars in general are really nice; that’s what I’m drinking the green smoothie above out of.)

Just shake your hemp milk before using; it does separate (another reason I can’t get Mark to drink homemade milks). This is barely sweet, which is how I like it. Add additional sweetener if you must. Sometimes I omit the date entirely. It also tastes kinda hempy, I won’t lie. If your favorite non-dairy milk is chocolate Silk, this may not be the milk for you. I don’t know that I would relish drinking it straight, but I wouldn’t relish drinking ANY milk straight. I only use it on cereal, in smoothies, and occasionally in cooking (though not often because I don’t like milky things any more than Mark does).

I’ve also been making fermented cashew cheese in the Vitamix, but I’m perfecting that, so that’s coming soon to an I Eat Food post near you.

And now for my latest completely off-topic update. Other than Vitamixing it up every day, I haven’t been cooking anything all that amazing because I have a new hobby I’ve been obsessing over. I know I’ve posted a few sewing tutorials over the years, but I’ve always prefaced them by saying I’m a terrible sewer. Which I am. I don’t even LIKE sewing. I usually only do it because there is something I want that I can’t find to buy. So sewing is kind of a chore for me. Also, sewing machines break around me, which subsequently enrages me. Just over a year ago, I mentioned here that during my annual gift bag-making blitz, my sewing machine broke and I had to buy a new one. Well, guess what happened last month while making gift bags? My year-old machine broke. And it would have cost as much as I paid for it to repair it. Now, since I hate sewing, buying a new sewing machine, especially during the holiday season, is NOT fun for me. Buying a new camera: fun. New sewing machine: NOT fun. Who wants to spend a bunch of money on something they don’t like?

So I decided to do something different this time: buy a sewing machine I DO like. One that won’t break, and if it does, won’t cost a fortune to repair, as computerized machines do. I think I’ve stated here before that I don’t trust new things, that I much prefer old things, and therefore do almost all my shopping in antique and thrift stores. It seemed natural to me, then, to buy an old sewing machine instead of a crappy new one. A mechanical sewing machine. One I can open up and see the parts working. One that’s proven its worth over many years. One that is so beautiful to look at I’ve put it on display in my living room instead of cooping it up in the spare room. THIS sewing machine:

It’s a Singer 15-91; it’s cast iron (my favorite substance!), has all-metal parts, and is completely gear driven. It’s from 1949, fully restored, and complete with table it cost me about the same price I would have paid for yet another piece of crap modern sewing machine that would break in a year. You can actually get them for $50 and under – sometimes free – if you’re willing to put some work into it (they almost always require a re-wiring as the original wiring is unsafe today). It’s a thing of beauty. I’m in love with this sewing machine. Which is a weird thing for someone who hates sewing.

But I’m trying to NOT hate sewing, and this baby makes that task MUCH easier, believe me. I trust it far more than my old machines. It will stitch ANYTHING. It’s amazing in action! I’ve made a couple of rag quilts on it and it stitched through 8 layers of fabric – without me changing from a standard 11 needle – without the slightest hesitation. THIS is a sewing machine meant for Renae! Finally! [Funny: I just read the post I linked to above where I mentioned I’d bought a new sewing machine just before Christmas 2010 – I state in that post that my “dream sewing machine” has “long been an antique Singer”…why didn’t I just follow my dream then?!]

Anyway, THAT’s what I’ve been doing. Sewing, of all things! I’m even more surprised than you are. And here is a fat squirrel:

Ugggggghhhh. Saturday was flip-flop weather and today, Monday, THIS:

WHAT IS THIS???

Here’s why Mark is great, or one reason anyway: Fortinbras was here last week and he and Mark went to the mall so Mark could buy a new computer. I refused to go because I despise the mall. When they returned, I was informed that once they got to the Apple store, Mark abruptly announced, “buying a new computer is stupid; let’s go buy Renae something instead,” so they went to Williams-Sonoma and got me a bean pot for no apparent reason. I hadn’t done anything to deserve said bean pot, especially a mere week after Christmas, when I got a Vita-Mix, but I’m not complaining because I’ve been wanting a bean pot, so yay!

The bean pot I suddenly came to own was packed with a couple of recipes so today I decided to make the included Oven Baked Beans recipe, which is slightly non-vegan with its can of pork and beans (and Worcestershire sauce, but since it’s easy for me to buy vegan Worcestershire, I don’t even register it as a non-vegan ingredient). So this is my adaption of the Le Creuset Oven Baked Beans recipe.

Le Creuset Baked Beans

1 1/4 cups dried kidney beans
1 1/4 cups dried baby lima beans
1 1/4 cups dried pinto beans
1 1/4 cups dried Great Northern beans
1 14.5 oz can vegetarian baked beans
1 medium onion, diced
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses (I used blackstrap; the original recipe didn’t specify a type)
1/4 cup vegan Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup prepared mustard
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp liquid smoke
2 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp smoked pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp salt
hot sauce to taste – I used homemade sriracha
1 packet Goya artificial ham flavoring (optional, but it’s weirdly vegan, so if you want some of the hammy flavor you’re missing from the can of pork and beans, do it up)

Place the kidney, lima, pinto, and Great Northern beans in a large vessel. Cover with several inches of cold water and soak overnight (or all day). Alternatively, cover with several inches of boiling water and soak for one hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dice the onion.

Stir or whisk together the rest of the ingredients.

Drain the soaked beans.

Stir together all of the ingredients in a bean pot, Dutch oven, or large casserole.

Cover …

… and bake until done. The original recipe said to bake for two hours, and after two hours it was certainly edible, but I like my beans creamier so I added more water and baked for another hour.

Serve. This makes way more beans than you will probably need unless you are feeding 40 friends.

Moving on to completely off-topic items, the lovely Zoa asked to see some of the infrared pictures I took in Charleston and I can’t turn Zoa down.

Infrared filters work by blocking all visible light and allowing only infrared light to pass through to the camera. Because all visible light is blocked, the filters appear to be nearly opaque and you need to use shutter times of several seconds to many minutes, and thus you need a tripod. The images you make will appear very red with black detail. Usually you’ll convert this to black & white, where things that reflect a lot of infrared light, like foliage, will be more exposed, or lighter in tone, than they normally appear, which can give pictures an otherworldly appearance.

Here’s what a photo looks like before being converted to B&W:

This is the first infrared picture I ever took. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing and just held the shutter open for a random amount of time, so I don’t know how it ended up relatively well exposed. This is from Middleton Place. The South, with all that gorgeous Spanish moss, is a great place for these types of pictures.

Another from Middleton Place.

My tripod boy (Mark, acting as my assistant, is in charge of carrying the tripod) staged this photo. Can you find him? You can click for a full-size version if you need help.

From Magnolia Cemetery:

From Folly Beach:

We got a little silly by this time and started goofing off with the long exposures. This is me and Mark HAUNTING YOU.

Mark calls this one Portrait of an Artist as a Dead Man.

Okay, nothing too amazing, but I had a lot of fun taking them and am looking forward to playing around with the filter some more.

I don’t have any food today, sorry! I know it’s been a while, but we’ve been out of town. I hope to have a real food post soon, but since I don’t know when that will be I thought I’d pop in and wish you a happy new year. We’ve been in Charleston visiting Mark’s family, so I also thought I’d share some of the pictures I took of various animals there to tide you over until I’m able to do some proper cooking.

The first ones are from Middleton Place, which has beautiful gardens.

Lots of water fowl, which I love. I think this is an ibis:

I grew up next to a farm that had peacocks and I’ve loved them ever since.

My first word was “duck”.

Mark has decided that I have “catdar” because I constantly spot kitties. I usually then chase them around attempting to both pet and photograph them. This one was very friendly. Success!

Water buffalo.

I love this and the other sheep pictures I took. The sheep had been driven off from their shady resting spot by a terrorizing toddler. After he left, they wished to return but in the toddler’s place was a much quieter but still untrustworthy Renae, who was trying to photograph the water buffalo. Unaware of this, I started heading back to my group and encountered all of the sheep lined up several yards away staring at me like they were going to eat my soul if I didn’t get out of their spot.

I was reading Folly Beach- and Charleston-themed novels while I was down there this time. I did some reading after returning home from a day of lugging my tripod and camera around Middleton Place and found the narrator of the book I was on at the time taking his camera and tripod to Middleton Place for a day of shooting. Weird, huh?

I recently got an infrared filter for my camera and spent most of the trip taking pictures through it, which then got converted into kinda-creepy B&W pictures that I’m really into right now. My poor mother-in-law had to drag me around town and wait patiently while I set up my tripod and took exposures anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes. It was suggested we go to Magnolia Cemetery for the types of pictures I was taking. It was a great location and I got some fun shots. I wasn’t expecting to run into much wildlife there, but I did. Apparently there are even alligators there, although I unfortunately didn’t see any. I DID see this goose practicing his ballet poses:

Wouldn’t it have been hilarious if after my parents had repeated the word “duck” to me a million times, trying to get me to say my first word, my first word had been “goose”?

Other than the fun infrared pictures I took, the blue heron was my favorite part of Magnolia, though. What a beautiful animal. He tolerated me for a while and let me get pretty close:

Eventually, though, he got tired of me and took off across the water …

… and landed on a tree on the opposite side:

I returned home from Magnolia Cemetery and picked up a different book I was reading, only to have the main character die and be buried in…Magnolia Cemetery. What was going on with the books I was reading mirroring my life?? Well, at least I wasn’t buried in Magnolia.

In more materialistic news, Mark gave me a Vitamix, which I’ve been very much coveting, for Christmas, so if anyone has any favorite things to make in one, please share! I feel I have a lot of blending to do this week.

One of my favorite commenters, Josiane, managed to correctly identify and inquire about the lima bean risotto I made last week to accompany the “ricotta” butternut squash I mentioned in my last post. So I figured I’d make it again and post a recipe for her.

I thought I was lightly adapting the recipe for Risotto with Vegetables du Jour in Lorna Sass’s Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure, but when I looked it up, I was pretty much making it exactly as specified, other than adding some wine to the broth. In a side note she even suggests lima beans, which I thought was my own idea, as one of the vegetables “du jour”. I wish I had actually adapted it so I wasn’t posting an exact recipe, but honestly, it’s a very basic recipe and there’s not much to change. Another thing: I used a pressure cooker, as you can probably tell from the name of the cookbook I got the recipe from. If you haven’t made risotto in a pressure cooker, you have no idea how EASY it is. I highly recommend investing in a pressure cooker – or putting one on your wish list. And as soon as you have the pressure cooker, get Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure because it’s excellent. Because I’m always looking up pressure-cook times for various beans and grains, it’s probably my most-referred-to cookbook.

You can also make this the hard way, by standing over the stove, stirring constantly and slowly adding the the broth as it is absorbed. It’s up to you!

Lima Bean Risotto
very lightly adapted from Lorna Sass’s Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure

1 large shallot, minced
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
large pinch saffron (Trader Joe’s sells this for a reasonable price, although that’s not very helpful for Josiane, who is in Canada!)
salt to taste (the recipe calls for 1 tsp; I find the perfect amount depends on the broth you choose)
3 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup cooked lima beans (I had some leftover from another dish in the freezer)
2 Tbsp freshly-squeezed lemon juice
something green: thinly sliced scallions, chopped parsley or other herb, etc.

Mince the shallot.

Prep and measure the rest of the ingredients.

My broth is homemade and fairly concentrated, so I watered it down a bit so not to overwhelm the risotto. Here it is combined with the wine.

Heat some olive oil over medium-high heat in a pressure cooker (or medium-large pot if you are doing things the hard way). Add the shallots and cook until soft, then add the rice, salt, and saffron and stir to coat with the oil.

Add the broth and wine, put the lid on, take the heat up to high, and bring up to pressure. Then reduce the heat to low or medium-low (the lowest at which you can keep it at pressure) and cook for 5 minutes. Release pressure using a “quick-release” method.
(If you aren’t using a pressure cooker, get a book to read and a chair to sit on, and add the broth 1/2 cup at a time, waiting until it is absorbed to add the next dose. This will take about 30-40 minutes, if I remember correctly, but it’s been a very long time.)

There are three possibilities when you remove the lid of the pressure cooker: 1) the risotto will be a little dry, 2) the risotto will be a little runny, or 3) the risotto will be done perfectly. In the case of #1, add a little broth, as well as the lima beans and green stuff and return to medium heat just until the lima beans are heated through, stirring. In the case of #2, return to medium to medium-high heat to boil off the extra liquid, stirring and adding the lima beans and green stuff 2 or 3 minutes before it’s ready. If #3, just add the lima beans and green stuff and heat a couple of minutes until the lima beans are warm. Mine was a little liquidy.

I’ve added the limas in this picture.

After removing from the heat, add the lemon juice, adjusting the amount to taste. Adjust the salt if necessary.

And serve. This was accompanied by vegan “fish” in a garlic-tarragon sauce.

Josiane, I hope that helps – I’m sure you’ll add your own touches; let me know how it goes! As for the rest of you, any other requests?!

And now, Torticia.

Tomorrow is my company’s holiday potluck and I volunteered, as usual, to bring a salad. So last night I went to Wegmans and wandered around until inspiration struck. I decided to go with a rice noodle salad, so I bought a few things and then tonight whipped up a sauce to pull them all together. I knew I had posted a rice noodle salad here a few months ago, but I didn’t realize until now that what I made was almost identical. Nonetheless, I took a bunch of pictures of it, so I’m posting it anyway!

Rice Noodle Salad…again

1 package rice noodles
about 3″ of a wide daikon, shredded, julienned, or cut on spiralizer
2 carrots, shredded, julienned, or cut on spiralizer
a few leaves of savoy or Napa cabbage, shredded
1 red bell pepper, thinly julienned
1 cup bean sprouts
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp sesame paste
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp grated ginger
1 Tbsp tamarind paste
1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp lime juice
sriracha to taste

Prepare the noodles. Begin by soaking them in cold-to-room-temperature water for 10 minutes (this prevents them from sticking to each other later), then heat the water to a near boil and cook just until al dente. Drain, rinse with cold water, and toss with a bit of sesame oil to prevent sticking. Set aside.

Prepare each of the vegetables by julienning, shredding, or cutting on a spiralizer. Here is my daikon:

And here is my cabbage:

Put each of the vegetables in a bowl as you prep them.

Chop the cilantro, then place in the bowl with the vegetables. Set aside.

Put the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl. Adjust the ratio of each to suit your taste; I just estimated above what I used. I adore this little Fire King bowl for making small amounts of sauce.

Whisk. This sauce would also be good as a dipping sauce for summer rolls. In fact, it ended up kind of watered down in the salad, but was good enough to show off, so I might have to make it again soon for dipping.

Put the noodles into a large bowl or pot, then thoroughly mix in the sauce.

Add the vegetables and toss until everything is combined.

I’m thinking this will be a good potluck dish because it doesn’t need to be warmed before serving and in fact can just sit on my desk for a couple of hours in the morning instead of taking up space in the refrigerator.

The bundle of cilantro I bought was HUGE! Help me out: what are your favorite cilantro-centric recipes?

In other news, I had some Tofutti ricotta left over from my taste test last week, so I thought I’d sprinkle some on a butternut squash before baking. Mistake. The Tofutti ricotta did okay in the pasta bake I made for my review, but it did not fare as well baked “in the open” instead of mixed in a casserole and covered. I put a bunch of the ricotta in the hole left by the seeds, and a thin layer on the rest of the squash. The ricotta in the hole melted to a very thin, watery, tasteless liquid, and the remainder of it turned…kinda brown and crusty. Looks like cat food, non?

That whole brown part was hollow and crispy and slid right off the squash. The ricotta added absolutely no taste to the squash; it was like water. (The brown part was like crispy water, I guess.) I should have just poured it off and sprinkled some of my normal brown sugar on the squash; it would have been much better. I definitely won’t be buying that stuff again. I gave the rest of it to Gomez, who likes it far better than I do, though I can’t imagine why.

What’s that you say? You miss the raccoons? Well, that’s understandable!

Scrumpy was found alone near a school a few weeks ago. As you may expect, young raccoons like toys similar to those you would give your cat or dog. They are so dexterous and curious, however, that they also enjoy toys made for human children, with buttons they can push and parts they can yank on. They get into as much trouble than a toddler, that’s for sure!

Renata is much larger than Scrumpy and in fact her siblings were released months ago, but she wasn’t ready to go. She’s adopted Scrumpy and will over-winter with us to take care of him, which works out well because raccoons like company and also learn from each other as they grow. Renata kept pushing her face into the camera when I was trying to take Scrumpy’s picture. Does your cat or dog walk towards you whenever you try to take a picture? Raccoons are like that too, except I think usually their motive is more to steal your camera than to say hi.